Virtual HDD becomes unavailable for guest after a Canceled write is logged

The guest is a Windows SBS Server 2008 with 2 virtual CPUs, 4 GB of virtual RAM and two virtual HDDs (C: with 40 GB and D: with 20 GB, both with lots of free space). This SBS server acts as an SBS primary server (i.e., AD controller); it has had its MS Exchange and MS SharePoint removed and an SQL Server 2008 has been installed (besides the SQL Server 2005 Express that comes with SBS and which cannot be removed). This is a supported configuration for SBS, even if it's a bit unusual. It has not been customized significantly yet because we were just testing feasibility. The guest is running the latest Guest Additions (matching the host's VirtualBox version).

The problem is the guest works fine... until it doesn't. When the problem appears, guest applications start hanging pretty fast. A few tests have shown that the problem is that the (virtual) C: drive has stopped responding, and appications die only when they try to access it. The failing drive can also be the D: drive instead. The guest system cannot be brought down in this situation: the only option is powering it off or waiting for the Windows kernel to bluescreen and reset.

When the guest system is hanged like that, one or several messages like this one can be seen in the Vbox.log file:

The problem is not easily reproduceable. It sometimes fails several times in a row, then sometimes it works for a couple of days before failing again. It might be a VirtualBox bug somehow related to host load (but this server is nowhere near full utilization).

This problem has been found on an HP ML370 G6 dual Quad Xeon host with lots of RAM and 4 SAS 15000 RPM HDDs working in a RAID10 array. The host runs CentOS 5.7 and this host is, as you might guess, unusually fast. This host also runs another VirtualBox guest: it's a Windows Server 2008 R2 system that works fine and hasn't suffered from this problem (fingers crossed). This other guest runs under a different host user.

The "Canceled write" messages sometimes appear a while before any symptom appears in the guest. Other times it happens simultaneously. On one occasion I left it hanged and the Windows guest showed a blue screen with error 0x1000009f. On a different occasion I had seen a different error code which I don't have at hand now, but I researched it at the time and it was clearly related to a "missing" C: drive.

Also, a couple of times I saw the same guest symptoms while there had been no "Canceled write" messages in the log. I now think the canceled write messages may be just a symptom, but not near to the cause of the problem; they are just correlated to it.

I have a couple of snapshots where the problem arises soon almost every time upon doing some operation. Let me know if any of this is useful to you.

I'm hit by the same bug. Under Ubuntu 8.04 Linux 64bits, on 4.1.6 and 4.1.8 Virtualbox, suddently, AHCI was causing this error (was running ok for a long time). I had to switch to ide. The guest S.O. is Ubuntu 8.04 server.

On another server, where i have 8 VMs (all Windows XP Guest), i got hit by this bug randomnly on each of those VMs.

This is easily reproduceable, you need the low speed disk system (in my case it is RAID6 array) on the host, ACHI on the guest and heavy write data flow to disk(not long).
For me it's a really problem. I was faced with this problem around half a year ago, and long time sought any information, tried a lot of variants of configuration, and have no result.
Now i move critical important vdi files to SSD, but sometimes like today i faced with this problem on not SSD drive and need to reboot guest. It's very very very very very poorly.
What i should to do to resolve or circumvent this problem? iSCSI?

Then I assume that enabling the host I/O cache for the SATA controller would have the same effect (VM settings).

Nope. I have seen this problem with host I/O cache enabled.
BTW, I am the original post author (karmapolis). I couldn't recover that account after they merged the bug tracker with the Oracle authentication system.

I have the same problem occurs almost every hour when copying files. The host system is Ubuntu Linux. The guest is Solaris 11. VirtualBox v4.3.20. When copying a large number of files on the guest system via NFS virtual hard disks fail at the guest about 1 time per hour.
VirtualBox writes error:
AHCI#0: Port 0 reset
AHCI#0: Port 1 reset
AHCI#0: Port 2 reset
AHCI#0: Port 3 reset
AHCI#0: Port 4 reset
AHCI#0: Port 5 reset

Guest system writes an error:
sata: WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d:

SATA device detached at port 0

sata: WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d:

SATA device detached at port 1

sata: WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d:

SATA device detached at port 2

sata: WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d:

SATA device detached at port 3

sata: WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d:

SATA device detached at port 4

sata: WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci8086,2829@d:

SATA device detached at port 5

The order of error varies from case to case, but always 6 disc fails.
Guest system then not shutdown normally. VirtualBox falls during shutdown of the host system. This error occurs last 20 starts copying files.
I attach logs VirtualBox.